Naked


Naked an excellent and well done movie, and it should not be missed if you wish to see the more brutal truths regarding our existence. Our existence, as shown by the movie, is rather pointless. This is a view I hold, but here, however, instead of a disbelief in god, Johnny, the focal character (played brilliantly by David Thewlis), does believe in god. He just claims that whatever god is, it is a "nasty bastard". For is it not god who allows evil to flourish? Presumably god derives some sadistic pleasure in watching humans suffer. Why doesn't it make things better for all of us?

But that's not the main theme of the story. The story starts off Johnny, who's homeless, having sex (raping would be more accurate) a girl and then he steals a car and drives to meet his ex-girlfriend. There, he meets her roommate and waxes philosophic to her and has sex with her (one after the other). He encounters several girls throughout the movie, all of whom he leaves in a state of nausea, by spreading his disillusionment with the world.

The movie is rather male chauvinistic, and shows how males (Johnny and another more abusive person called Sebastian (played by Greg Curtwell)) use their "superior" physical strength to dominate sexual encounters. I think however it misses the point in that it implies that male dominance is rooted in sex, and I don't believe it's the case. There is a scene, however, which brings Lorena Bobbitt to mind.

It's a typically artsy movie, but it does have a lot of good quotes and good references to various things that one's familiar with (Nostradamus, the Bible, a Megadeth and Pantera poster (which is the album cover for Countdown to Extinction (which fits in well with the movie), and some symbolism when this boy puts up posters with Therapy? and then puts "cancelled" on them)). It drags a bit, too. And it's British.

"Have you ever thought, right, that you might have already had the happiest moment in your whole fuckin' existence, and all you've got to look forward to is sickness and purgatory and death." ---Johnny, in Naked
"In order to make an omelette you need to crack a few eggs. And humanity is just a cracked egg, and the omelette... stinks." ---Johnny, in Naked

Movie ram-blings || Ram Samudrala || me@ram.org